June 12, 2012
Featuring fresh takes and real-time analysis from HuffPost's signature lineup of contributors
Senior Washington Correspondent, Huffington Post
Criminally investigating the kinds of leaks that are the bread and
butter of national security investigative reporting is a noxious
overreaction by hyper-controlling government officials who don't want us
to know what's being done in our name.
Attorney General Eric Holder
announced last week
that he has assigned two U.S. attorneys to lead criminal leak
investigations into recent media reports about topics including how
drone attacks are approved at the White House and how a computer virus
attack was launched against Iran's nuclear program.
There
is such a thing as a criminal leak -- for instance,
when an administration official intentionally outs a covert CIA
operative in an attempt to discredit an administration critic.
But leaks that expose secrets that have momentous public policy
implications need to be treated differently, because they are a critical
part of our nation's system of checks and balances. Knowledge is
essential to the public's ability to restrain executive (and
legislative) power.
In this case, part of the pressure for an investigation came from Congress -- from Sen.
John McCain, who accused the Obama administration of leaking for political gain, and from the bipartisan leaders of the
House and Senate intelligence committees,
whose most righteous anger seems to be reserved not for violations of
international law, torture statues or civil liberties, but for those
occasions when the public, thanks to aggressive reporting by
journalists, knows
more than they do about something.
If President Obama is truly concerned about these leaks -- which I'm
not at all sure he is -- there's a very simple solution. He can call in
top national security staffers and other top officials and demand to
know what role they played in these stories. If they leaked, and did so
without his implicit or explicit approval, and he really thinks that was
the wrong thing to do, he can fire them. If they lie to him (like
Karl Rove did to George Bush about his role in the Valerie Plame leak) then Obama has bigger problems with his staff than leaks.
Outsourcing the investigation to the Department of Justice instead is
a cowardly ducking of responsibility -- with tremendously dangerous
potential. This is especially the case because under Obama and Holder,
the DOJ -- presumably to build up good will with the intelligence
community -- has taken to charging such leaks as violations of the
draconian Espionage Act, a 1917 law intended for the prosecution of
people who are aiding the enemy. Furthermore, the official DOJ position
now seems to be that there is
no reporter's privilege at all
in such maters, and therefore no need to even consider the nature of
the leak, how much if any damage it actually caused, what the intentions
of the leaker were, and how much it served the public interest.
The six previous times the Obama administration has charged
government officials who leaked to the press with Espionage Act
violations --
more than all previous presidents combined -- have already sent a chilling message to investigative reporters and the whistleblowers they depend on.
That is ultimately not a good thing for our democracy. And one would
have hoped that a president ostensibly devoted to transparency would
recognize that.
Cross-posted from NiemanWatchdog.org, where Froomkin is deputy editor.
Follow Dan Froomkin on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/froomkin
No comments:
Post a Comment